Julianna, the lead story in this collection of short stories, is the seed of Dan Carroll's Slum novels-the award winning Slum, and the sequel, Slum Song. The short story, Julianna, was originally thrown onto the "scrap heap" as Dan explains in the Preface, but because of the potential of its characters- Julianna, Alba, Robert, and Donna-the story had been reevaluated and the characters reappear in the novels. Presented in this book are 'stories of passion.' In addition to Julianna, a story of impassioned love between Robert and Julianna, Caresse exemplifies the passion of lust, Holding Hands the passion of infatuation, Purge the passion of fury, and Christmas Tears the passion of a young girl struggling to become her own person. Many of Dan's short stories are the result of his global adventures which have ranged from the Middle East to the Czech Republic to countries of the Caribbean and Central America. Stories in this collection reflect some of those journeys.